Collaborating with patients in education
To reinforce and improve our education, we use the unique experience expertise of patients. An active and involved patient community has already been established where patients take on various roles. In 2022, in the Clinical Medical Sciences program, two patient lecturers for example taught as well as structured the course material. And for the revision of the curriculum for bachelor’s program in Medicine, we arranged for a patient to become an official member of the curriculum revision committee.
In addition, the Central Training Committee (COC) established a Patient Participation Working Group in 2022 to also teach specialists and doctors in training the importance of collaborating with patients. UMC Utrecht employees who serve on the Patient Participation Working Group of the Dutch Medical Education Association (NVMO) co-authored the article 'Twelve tips for patient involvement in health professions education ’. The article mentions several examples of how UMC Utrecht makes use of cooperation with patients in education.
We also took targeted actions in the pharmacotherapy learning line in 2022 to explicitly include the voice of the patient. Following brainstorming sessions with the patient sounding-board group on education, one of the choices we made was to record videos in patients' homes of how they experience taking medication. One patient is closely involved in making these videos. Our aim is in 2023 to have the experiences of twelve patients on video. Read more about how we collaborate with patients at UMC Utrecht.
